The sun has been shining over western Alaska for the last week straight. The willows are thickening, the birds are singing, and the tundra is now speckled with tiny flowers.

All that makes for some epic weekend and after-work hikes, but radio never sleeps, so neither do the KNOM volunteers. For this week’s audioblog, Mitch interviews Emily about snakes, sun guilt, fainting couches, and the goodbyes that loom in the all too near future.

About five weeks ago, when I was sitting in the single clear space on my bedroom floor, trying to figure out how to fit all those sweaters and wool socks and extra toiletries into my two bags, I had a thought.

I crawled through the chaos to the hall closet and dug my trusty ace bandage out of a basket of braces, wraps, and tape. It’s not that my family is generally prone to injury; they’re just the athletic, active kind of people who play sports aggressively and lift heavy things and display their wounds with stoic pride.

I was not exactly cut from the family cloth. I walk into door frames and furniture so often that I’m never sure where the newest bruise came from. I have raised goose eggs on my nose more than once from walking directly into solid objects, such as a giant marble column. And my attempts to become more athletic generally end badly. Bike crashes, pulled muscles, tendonitis, sprained ankles–it’s really anyone’s guess how I haven’t broken anything yet.

So I brought my ace bandage with me to Nome, thinking that maybe the fates would be kinder to me if I had it. There are so many outdoorsy activities here, and maybe if I prepared myself for injury, it wouldn’t really happen.

But it was only a matter of time. It was a beautiful Saturday, so we decided to go on a hike to Dorothy Falls. We sang Taylor Swift loudly to scare off bears as we walked through the yellowing willows. We waded across a river in boots and barefoot (you know, if you’re me and only have hiking shoes). We climbed up a ridge. We admired the view and picked some lingering blueberries. We could just see the falls at the bottom of the ridge when I announced that I felt like I might turn my ankle if we kept walking sideways downhill. And then I did.

In that moment, lying on a ridge, facing a one-and-a-half mile hike back to the road, and trying really hard to seem tougher than I am in front of the other volunteers, I was grateful for my natural clumsiness. It meant that I had done all this before, only worse and with my dad to hold my hand. I knew immediately what had happened, and I knew that I could get back to the car by walking carefully and leaning on Francesca’s arm in the particularly boggy, downhill parts.

Of course, there weren’t many other options, and I really didn’t want to be carried. But I’m choosing to take the positive spin here. Some people talk about coming here to lose yourself, but that’s never sat well with me. I don’t want to throw everything out and reclaim the essentials. I want to slowly chip off the nonessentials, and uncover those diamonds that are too hard to break.

We walked back slowly. Francesca let me chatter away about Eskimo Stories and Legends, the program I’m responsible for at the station. I got home, found my ace bandage, and propped my leg up with a bag of ice. It wasn’t the afternoon I’d been expecting, but I didn’t cry or complain. I didn’t even let it stop me from reciting my favorite poem for the bears in the willows, or smiling when when everyone got water in their boots crossing the river again.

That day I was tougher than I expected myself to be. So I’m going to call this one a victory.

I’ve never seen so many berries in my life. Not in the produce aisle of the grocery store. Not in barrels at the farmers’ market. Not in my own kitchen. Not ever.

And the crazy part is that they just grow here. Like, on the ground. Walking on the tundra this time of year feels like a perpetual act of blasphemy for that reason — you can’t avoid crushing berries, even if you want to. Which, believe me, I do; I’ve probably crushed half a dozen pies worth of blueberries since arriving in Nome. And it’s not just blueberries. There are salmon berries, crowberries, even teeny-tiny cranberries. Berries that I didn’t even know existed.

From left to right: Crow berries, cranberries and blueberries. Photo: Francesca Fenzi, KNOM

Truly, the tundra confounds me. I must have missed the National Geographic episode that explained things actually grow on top of the permafrost, because I was not expecting this squishy, vibrant wonderland under my feet. Other aspects of the arctic scenery haven’t come as such a tremendous shock to me; I’ve been fortunate enough to live in places that also cherish open space. And while there’s so much more space in Alaska than anywhere in the Lower 48 — heck, than anywhere I’ve ever seen — the vast expanse of tundra isn’t what stole my breath away. It was the sheer density of the stuff that really amazed me.

From a distance, tundra just looks like grass. But it’s actually a maze of lichen, fungi and other leafy green things. Photo: Francesca Fenzi, KNOM

From what I’ve observed, tundra is basically a miniaturized orgy for plant matter. One square foot of it contains dozens upon dozens of plant and lichen species — all growing in and on and around each other. Last Saturday, a few of us from the volunteer house went for a hike — “hike” here roughly translates to “walk on the tundra until you can’t see the car anymore” — and I was so engrossed by the endless colors and variations of plant species on the ground that I spent more time looking down at my feet than up at the view. (Condemnably not bear aware, I know.)

A zoomed-out view of the tundra. Not even half as cool, right? (Okay, still pretty cool.) Photo: Francesca Fenzi, KNOM

Since then the tundra has come to symbolize, for me, the overwhelming plenty that seems to abound here during the summer months. Whether it be berries, or lichen, or salmon, or sunshine — you can find it in spades under the midnight sun. At least, that’s how it appears. You want some fish? Toss a net in the water and by tomorrow you’ll have twenty. You want some fruit? Spend an hour on the tundra and you’ll have a gallon. (I’m underplaying the very, very hard work that goes into subsistence living here — but you get the idea.) As Jenn skillfully put it, “the land of plenty” takes on a whole new meaning in this place.

During fall, the miniature plants of the tundra change color — like the leaves of deciduous trees. Photo: Francesca Fenzi, KNOM

In fact, the “plenty” part is so overwhelming that it can be hard to remember there’s ever a time when food and sunshine are in short supply. But as the ever-corny volunteer joke goes: Winter is coming. And the tundra — in its continual awesomeness — will be changing color soon as it morphs from green, to red, to some icy thing I can’t even picture yet. Which is as fierce a motive as any to gather the berries I can… before they disappear for good.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/08/19/gather-ye-berries-or-carpe-the-alaskan-diem/feed/311277Winter to Springhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/06/06/winter-to-spring/
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:30:07 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=9557"Want to go egging?" Volunteer Emily gets a text from a local friend to go collect wild eggs for food, an important protein source in a springtime subsistence diet. As the seasons change, Emily gets out and about in the Nome countryside.]]>

Spring is here.

I had just sat down to obsess over my future on Monday night when my friend texted me, “Wanna go egging?” (for those of you in the Lower 48, “egging” does not mean throwing eggs at someone’s house – it’s going to responsibly collect eggs as part of the subsistence lifestyle. Alaska is much more sophisticated than the rest of the country in some regards). I looked at the blank Word Document and closed my laptop; ten minutes later, we were roaring down the beach in her side-by-side scouting for pairs of arctic terns in the sand. As we drove, my friend pointed out different bird species and named them for me in Inupiaq – she told me that the local names are based mostly on the sound of the birdcalls. Her daughter snoozed between us as the sun threatened to set in the North. We didn’t find any eggs, but that seemed almost secondary to just spending time in good company out in the country.

Driving on the beach!

Summer in Nome is different. You wouldn’t be able to tell from the weather – it’s been thirty degrees and raining since mid-March – but there is definitely a new energy in the air. Another friend, as we waded through a stream on our way to Dorothy Falls on Sunday night, summed it up perfectly when she said, “I feel like I would have wasted today if I didn’t get out and do something.” And “today” covers a long stretch of time now: the sun never really sets, which means that your hour-long hike can turn into four or five hours if you aren’t paying attention. The wildlife gives you no clues either – the migratory birds are just as active at eleven at night as they are at eleven in the morning.

Wading through a river on the way to Dorothy Falls

It’s not difficult to see that spring and early summer is a time of change in Western Alaska. The animals are back, there is green poking through the tundra, and there are more people out and about, including the volunteers. But another, more personal change is coming our way: next week, we’ll welcome the first 2014-2015 KNOM volunteer, Jenn, into our home. We’ve spent a year adjusting to each other’s habits and setting routines geared toward efficiency, and now we’ll have to reimagine our living situation. As the season changes, we’ll have to change as well. Our year at KNOM is drawing to a close, but there are still a few more adventures to be had before we sign off.

]]>9557Becoming a Nomeitehttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/08/23/becoming-a-nomeite/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/08/23/becoming-a-nomeite/#commentsFri, 23 Aug 2013 17:11:13 +0000http://www.knom.org/blog/wp/?p=4257I arrived in Nome four weeks ago, and have been getting settled into my role as Music Director at KNOM. This first post is a little bit more serious than I had planned, but it stems from a very basic part of my experience here so far: from Anchorage to Nome to Woolley Lagoon, people in Alaska are so darn friendly! I’m a city girl from downtown Chicago and am constantly amazed by how nice everyone is here. I love it!

But seriously.

On the plane from Anchorage to Nome, I sat next to a man who moved to Alaska when he was in his early twenties. Now in his mid-fifties, he was eager to tell me about transitioning from the Lower 48. A lot of people, he said, come up here alone. They have to build their own families when they get here. In Alaska, everyone knows their neighbors.

I’ve thought about this observation in the three weeks that I’ve lived in Nome. It seems that the connection between people in Western Alaska goes beyond immediate neighbors: this neighbor connection spreads across the state: neighbors participate in the community of the state.

I have never been part of such a close-knit community. In my hometown of Chicago, communities are more proximate but also more restricted: the term “community” may refer to teams, co-ops, condo associations, or churches, but outside certain meeting times and locations it is difficult to discern an overarching Chicagoland community. In Western Alaska, “community” refers to people who live far apart from one another, yet who are extremely connected despite this distance.

Airport Pizza, I believe, serves as a microcosm of community spirit in Western Alaska. Although it is located in Nome, it will fly pizzas to villages that order their pies. It seems like a huge amount of resources to put into a small, simple pizza delivery, and yet Airport Pizza has built its entire financial structure on being able to provide this service. It doesn’t matter that pizza is not necessarily nutritious or directly needed for survival, or that these orders only benefit a small number of people. Airport Pizza deliveries are for improving the quality of life of Western Alaskans, and fostering communication between Nome and the surrounding villages. Furthermore, Nomeites gladly pay more for their own pizza so that Airport Pizza can continue to provide this service. This payment is not an act of charity, however: it is a recognition that if they do not pay more, then Airport Pizza will not be able to deliver to the villages and the community connection will be lost. This is community empowerment.

On my way to Salmon Lake!

So, I have thrown myself into being a good community member. Communities have shared histories, and in rural Alaska, many of those histories have to do with the land. Around Nome, both the natural landscape and the surrounding villages and camps are a source of conversation and shared experience. I have been hiking and exploring as much as I can so that I, too, can participate in that common memory. The weather has been gorgeous for hikes on Anvil Mountain, Newton Peak, Salmon Lake, and Copper Canyon, and I was warmly welcomed in Woolley Lagoon. Thank you for the tremendous welcome over the past few weeks. I look forward to learning as much as I can and being a member of this wonderful community.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/08/23/becoming-a-nomeite/feed/14257Mom and Mehttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/06/28/mom-and-me/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/06/28/mom-and-me/#commentsFri, 28 Jun 2013 17:00:44 +0000http://www.knom.org/blog/wp/?p=3850Earlier this month my mom visited me in Nome! We were lucky to see many amazing parts of Nome and surrounding country in the few days she was here. And she got to see many sides of Nome:

From the last of the sea ice…

To Salmon Lake, 34 miles north of Nome…

To Velvet Eyes, the Pet Reindeer, on the back of a truck!

One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to go mushing with KNOM’s engineer, Rolland the Amazing, and his daughter Janelle. Rolland had just gotten a new toy, a side-by-side. It’s sort of like a dune buggy. They hooked up their 18 dogs to the buggy. The dogs were panting in the heat. Then Rolland and Janelle kindly took us for the ride of our lives over the tundra.

It was truly a visit to remember. I feel so lucky and privileged to have her here. The best part was just waking up in the morning and knowing my mom was right down the hallway from me, sleeping soundly after an overnight layover in the Anchorage airport.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2013/06/28/mom-and-me/feed/13850Outsiders in Nome.http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2012/12/04/outsiders-in-nome/
Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:00:33 +0000http://www.knom.org/blog/wp/?p=2364It was a strange feeling being in the shoes of the person who acts as a tour guide of Nome. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that former volunteer, Matt, was walking me down the streets of Nome showing me the Subway, post office, and Nome’s unofficial mascot, Velvet Eyes the pet reindeer. However, when some friends from my days in AmeriCorps NCCC came to visit last week, I found myself in the position of certified “Nomeite” over “small town newbie”.

See? Look how lost Eva and I are. I’m a terrible tour guide.

Luckily however, I don’t think my friends Andrea and Nicole saw through the facade that I actually know where I’m going in this town. You’d think that I’d know where I was going seeing as how this is a small town and there’s plenty of time to explore. As my mother says however, “that boy couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag”. It’s true. I’ve been known to avoid carrying homemade lunches for this very reason.

We can talk about my lunchtime habits during some other blog post though. All in all I feel like I did a good job of showing my friends around. Not only was it great getting the chance to introduce my friends to the voyage I’ve embarked on here in Nome, visiting places like Anvil Mountain, the White Alice Site, and the icy shoreline was also a much needed reminded for myself of how much adventure awaits just outside of the Volunteer House.

The best part of having visitors in Nome is surprising them with facts about day-to-day life here in Town. Some of my favorites to name a few include:

“Here’s the post office. It’s also the Chiropractor’s.”

“What kind of restaurant is that? Well it serves sushi, pizza, Korean, Barbeque, Japanese, and burgers.”

I am looking forward to more Volunteer House guests as my time here progresses. Until then, I’m going to studying up on how to get from all the point A’s to point B’s in this town before more company arrives.

]]>2364Let’s Go Exploringhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2012/09/02/lets-go-exploring/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2012/09/02/lets-go-exploring/#commentsMon, 03 Sep 2012 03:25:31 +0000http://www.knom.org/blog/wp/?p=1594So this is it. The final blog post. After two years of working as Public Affairs Director for KNOM, I head out the door with a lot of great memories, wonderful friends, and a mountain of experience that I plan to use as I pursue a career as a reporter.

It’s been great meeting the new volunteers and attempting to pass on some of the knowledge I’ve accrued in my time in Nome and at KNOM. I’m happy for the brief crossover I’ve been a part of; I think it’ll help the new group get off to a strong start, and also got me excited to listen to the content they’ll produce over the next year. (I’d love to see some online streaming come to KNOM some day, but until then, I will content myself with Update News, Profiles, and the like.) In this long goodbye with the new volunteers—“the kids,” I jokingly call them—I’ve sometimes felt like I’m talking more than I should, that maybe letting the new recruits discover things on their own would be better. Well, that that hasn’t stopped me (yet). But my time at KNOM, and living at the KNOM house, officially comes to a close this Friday. After that, it’s all in their hands.

I leave my role at KNOM feeling that there’s a list of things left undone: Profiles I want to do, stories I wanted to write, slices of Alaskan life I have yet to feature on KNOM in some way. But I suppose that’s just news, isn’t it? There’s always something more going on, always more stories to tell, always another interview you’d love to have done. C’est la vie, I suppose, but it’s a shame that la vie has gone by so quickly at times. (At the same time, if you had asked me back in February, I’d have said la vie was moving tortuously slowly).

Two years is hard to sum up in a pithy blog post without getting bogged down in the details. Let is suffice to say that I have experienced many things, both personally and professionally, that I feel never would have been possible without KNOM and my time in Nome. Work, life experiences, learning opportunities, volunteerism, and personal relationships: from the new and astounding, to the scary and thrilling, to the sad and painful, to the profound and insightful.

It’s been a tremendous experience, and I can only look back to the early months of 2010—when the very idea of KNOM seemed like a radical fantasy, that I could volunteer, gain experience in the news industry, and live in a unique corner of the planet—well, it was a heady proposition, one that I wasn’t sure I had the guts to take.

But take it I did, and I’m far richer for the experience. I can only hope that in writing about it in this blog, and talking about it to anyone who asks, more people will trust themselves to the KNOM adventure. It can seem daunting, but if you have an interest, you’re ready. So apply. Get on the plane. Dare to take the challenge. To—forgive the cliché, but it’s true—to live the dream. You will not be disappointed.

While it’s bittersweet to leave, I am excited to be going. Going on to something new and exciting, free in a way that I imagine few are after finishing a job for a couple of years. If only for some fresh air, I’m getting out of Nome, which essentially means I’m packing up my life into a few backpacks and duffel bags, and shipping it out of Nome. I’ll be visiting my brother is Los Angeles, my sister in Austin, my parents in Delaware, and some friends up and down the east coast. I’ve got weddings to attend and road trips to take, old friends to reconnect with and new opportunities that await.

It’s at times like this in life—during major transitions from one chapter to another, when all that is familiar falls away and you’re left facing something new and unknow—that I turn to those two great philosophers, Calvin and Hobbes (as written by Bill Watterson). My favorite comic strip as a kid, I find the final strip—printed on Sunday, December 31, 1995, and a copy of which awaits me buried somewhere within a half-dozen boxes collecting dust back east—optimistic in all the right ways. And so I end by sharing that strip with you, and with a hearty “thank you” to KNOM. I’ll see you in 9 years for the 50th.

This isn’t New York City, there aren’t landmarks all over the place for tourists to see, but there are a few. Around Memorial Day last year my former roommate Leah, dear friend Bre and I took a drive down Council Road and stopped for a quick photo op at “The Last Train to Nowhere.” Sometimes we aren’t good at posing for pictures, and sometimes we are.

Hey Leah – I miss you!

I like the idea of pictures, I promise I really do. But I don’t like the idea of over doing it. I worry sometimes that people spend too much time trying to capture a moment on camera and they don’t take the time to enjoy the experience while it’s unfolding in front of them with all of their senses. That being said, I own a very cheap camera, which is perfect for me. I can childishly snap photos when I want to, capture a memory or two, and at the end of the day I don’t have to worry if I’ve damaged my thousand dollar camera. No offense to all photographers out there – I love your work.

My cheap camera acted up on a recent hiking trip and only allowed me to take THREE photos. What the heck? Thankfully, all three of those photos were pretty great. I reached the top of the mountain I was hiking before my companion did and accidentally scared a bird right off of it’s nest as I stopped at the top to gaze out over the ledge. I took the opportunity to snap a photo of the nest while the mother flew overhead, screeching over and over. The bird had positioned the nest neatly on the edge of the cliff, so I had to do a little balancing and cling on to the ledge with one arm as I snapped the photo with the other, but I think it was worth it. Fortunately for the bird, I wasn’t in the mood for eggs.
The third photo is of Matthew heading up to the next peak, completely ignoring the chaos I had just gotten into with the bird and the eggs.

That is a moose. The moose is standing on the road. It was looking at me.